Battling The Future
by AtomicKokoro
Summary: Mikki has no idea where he is, but soon discovers he was taken to Calm. Meanwhile, Zed and everyone is trying to find out how those from Calm had gotten to Templar.


**Battling The Future**

**By: AtomicKokoro**

**Storyline**

Mikki has no idea where he is, but soon discovers he was taken to Calm. Meanwhile, Zed and everyone is trying to find out how those from Calm had gotten to Templar.

…

**Before You Read**

Bored. Oh, I'm writing 900 next! My second Multi-Dimensional crossover! ...okay, it's not happening, but it was a dream for a couple hours.

On with the story.

…

**Chapter 1**

**In The Darkness**

Caramel eyes fluttered open, first acknowledging how cold he was. He shivered, reaching out into the darkness for a blanket, only to realize how stiff he was. His hand patted against cold cement. Confused, he rolled onto his back, leveling out his body to check if this cold cement was what he was resting on.

By so, he was!

He leaned up, chains rattling as he moved. He blinked, his eyes adjusting to the darkness, the full moon being the only source of light available to him. He stood, however his vision blurred for a moment and he stumbled.

When he finally caught his balance, he walked forward, however soon meeting more cold concrete. He slapped his palm against the wall before following it to a corner, in which he turned and followed that wall towards the window.

Suddenly, the rattling stopped and he could no longer move his right leg forward. Something was pulling back on his ankle. He kneeled down to one knee and felt around his ankle. A cuff? He had been chained.

Fear began to settle in. He tried to keep himself calm as his pants grew heavier from the sheer terror he was beginning to feel, his breath trembling like his hands. Had he been kidnapped? Trapped? Who were his takers? Where was he, and why did they take him?

A scream of pain and terror shattered through the walls, causing the teen to glanced up. His heart began to race and the cry drew on, slowly fading to silence. He raced back to the corner he had been at before and ducked into the shadows.

Muffled voices beyond the wall on the opposing side had slowly grew louder and louder, as though they were coming. He waited, summoning all the courage inside. Footsteps approached the door, which he could begin to make out through the moonlight. He held his breath as it grew to it's loudest. The doorknob jingled as the heavy footsteps reached the front of his door.

And then the voices grew softer. The footsteps silenced and he found himself breathing again. A door slammed shut and the footsteps grew louder as they passed the door, and, just as they got to their loudest, they stopped.

He held his breath, staring at the door. The knob began to turn and the door opened. The teen raced towards the corner on the far wall where the door was. Light poured into the room and two uniformed men walked in. They glanced at the chain and followed it to the boy who was ducked in the corner, his eyes shinning viciously from the light.

One of the men grabbed his wrists while the other unlocked the chain around his ankle. They proceeded to show him out of the room and escorted him down the hall. There were many doors on the way there and far more behind him. Were people in all in those rooms?

He soon found himself in a room, much smaller than the one he had been in, and much brighter. He was sit at a small table in the center of the room, with a strange...device of some sort he had never seen before. He flicked it, and several people behind an invisible wall jumped and adjusted the things around their ears.

A woman sat at the other end of the table, staring at the teen intensely. The teen blinked and looked up at the ball of light above his head. His mouth opened and he stood up to touch it. "It's like a mini-sun!" he chuckled with a smile before he was forced to sit down again.

He blinked at the man behind him. Opened his mouth to say something, but the man gave him a good glare and the teen shut his mouth.

"What is your name?" the woman asked, earning the teen's attention.

The teen wasn't sure if he could trust these people, but he answered anyway. "M-Mikki," he replied.

Someone behind the invisible wall began to scribble something down on the paper.

"Mikki," the woman said. "What a nice name."

Mikki smiled. "Thanks," he said, starting to feel a bit more welcome. At least this lady was nice, because she was smiling back. The atmosphere was beginning to feel softer. "What's your name?"

"Erin," she replied.

"You have a nice name, too!" he said. "It's...different."

Erin smiled before continuing on. "Where do you come from?"

"Templar," Mikki replied, pausing before asking, "Could you tell me where I am?"

Erin folded her hands. "Calm," she said.

Mikki's jaw dropped. "Calm?" he repeated, looking astonished. "No way." He laughed a bit. "I'm in Zed's hometown." His smile faded. "I'm...in Zed's hometown. H-how did I get here?"

Erin sighed. "I'm sorry, but for now, you'll have to answer our questions."

Mikki thought about this before nodded. "Okay," he said.

"Alright, Mikki," she said. "Why don't you start telling me about yourself?"

Mikki thought about it. "Where do I start?" he mumbled under his breath before blinking. "I guess... Well, I own a bread shop. I like business better than fighting, that's for sure!"

"Fighting?"

Mikki nodded. "Hm! I'm a Shard Caster!"

"A what?"

Mikki tilted his head to one side. "You don't have Shard Casters in Calm? Zed was one, and so was his Mom."

Erin shushed him. "What's a Shard Caster?"

Mikki shifted uncomfortably as the people behind the invisible wall began to whisper and exchanged shocked glances. He looked back at the man behind him, who was staring off into space. Slowly, Mikki turned back to Erin and chuckled. "Um..." He honestly didn't know how to explain what a Shard Caster was to anyone how didn't _know_.

"Well," he chuckled, sounding nervous. He glanced down at his shins and gasped as an idea came to mind. "You see these markings?" he asked, pulling up his shin. Everyone tensed for a minute until they realized he was just bringing up his knee to show the marking. "They're what makes you a Shard Caster."

"A birthmark?"

"Sort of," he said. "Sometimes you're born with them and other times..." His voice trailed off and a distant look replaced his child-like innocence before he brought himself back to reality. "Not all people in Templar are Shard Casters. Actually, I think there are more your kind than Shard Casters."

"Our kind?" Erin questioned, raising an eyebrow.

Mikki scratched the back of his head. "Well, Shard Casters are human, too, you know. I'm afraid I don't know what non-Shard Casters are called."

Erin smiled and pressed her palms against the table. "I see," she said.

Before she could ask her next question, a voice began to speak, "That's enough for now, Erin." Mikki jumped to his feet in fear, looking around for the origin of the voice. "In here, boy."

Mikki looked into the room beyond the invisible wall to see a man leaning into a similar device as to the one he saw on the table, waving at him. Mikki smiled and waved back.

Someone grabbed his shoulder and lead him out of the room, back down the hall, and back to the room he had been in before. Mikki sighed and walked in. Before the door closed, he turned to Erin and asked, "Who's yell was it I heard earlier?"

Erin paused before answering, "No one. Anymore."

…

"Damn!" the salt teen snapped, slamming the door to the shop behind him. "He's gone! He. Is. Gone!" The female with him sighed. "Just like the old Fortune Teller, like that knight, like that kid, like all the others who are missing- Is someone kidnapping them?"

"Yes," the female said. "On several scenes, there had been signs of struggle. You said so yourself, Zed."

The male sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I know," he mumbled. "But _where_ are they? That is always the key to any mystery." He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. "Always in the crime shows, C.S.I, Castle, Criminal Minds, the first person they question is the...is the culprit. But..."

He spun in a full circle before dropping his chin to his chest. "...this isn't a crime show. Though i''d be cool, eh, Roya?"

Roya sighed. She had no idea what crime show was, not a C.S.I (but she knew what a Castle and a Criminal Mind was, literally and thankfully), and Zed, the male, had been up all night, looking for Mikki. He was currently suffering from a caffeine rush from far too much coffee, trying to stay up for the next day.

He rambled on about how most "crime shows" started with the letter C before proceeding to talk about an "episode" he saw once, which was beginning to make her wonder if "crime shows" were a disease and the C words were the different types. Perhaps a type of disease that made one hallucinate "episodes".

Did caffeine rushes cause hallucinations?

Roya stared at Zed, unable to understand a word he was saying as he drew in the air and spun in circles subconsciously. When Zed was hyper, he could talk several miles a minute, making it impossible to hear what he said. However, it was was also next to impossible for Zed to get hyper.

It was also easy to tell when he was nervous, not afraid but nervous, because he would grow very, very quiet. Not his usual quiet but his extremely quiet. The quiet where he was reply with nods or shakes and it was almost impossible to hear him breath.

It was also pretty easy to tell when he was angry. It was almost his favorite emotion, sometimes. She would remember how Mikki would stare at Zed, just trying to figure out if he was angry or just his normal self. Roya could tell, however, because Zed was violent when he was angry. Not a bad violent, but he had a tendency to either get physical or break something out of rage, whether it was a vase or someone's bones. Usually, it was the vase.

He was never sad. He never showed it, anyway. But, again, he would grow quiet and reserved, which sometimes often confused her with thinking he was nervous instead of sad. She would have to make him spill why he was so quiet for. When she got a, "Nothing," he was sad. If she got a, "It's a long story," he was nervous.

And then there were his..."cute" sides, as she liked to call them. Because he was, well, "cute", whether he was happy, excited, or any other positive emotion, such as hyper, he was quiet talkative. Of course, confused and clueless would fit in the "cute" category, just because the look on his face was priceless. It was tough to confuse him, but she did it every time!

Roya sighed as Zed started to draw some conclusions that had nothing to do with the missing people. He was tired and a caffeine crash was not too far behind. She honestly hated it when Zed dragged himself around, trying to get to the bottom of any problem that had been brought to him, but could she blame him this time? Mikki was missing, along with several other people.

"But then it's a vicious circle, a space-time continuum! Never ending cycle of yes, no, yes, no, to the point where if anyone tries to get to the bottom of it, they'll go-"

Roya sighed in relief as Noa caught the unconscious Zed. "...insane," Noa finished for him. "Never, ever give Zed coffee," he told Roya, although that was quite obvious already. "Sugar of any kind is usually a bad idea. If he gets a sugar rush, he can have very smart moments, but he'll drive himself insane."

Roya nodded. "I know, but he insisted," she countered in Zed's defense. "Mikki _is_ missing, along with a few other people."

Noa nodded. "I know," he said. "I tried to see if there were any connections between them, but there are none. The kidnappings are at random."

Roya shook her head. "This is bad. This leaves us with no clues."

Shifting Zed's weight in his arms, Noa dragged him out from the center of the road to the indoors of Mikki's bread shop, where Pinot was sobbing. "Any luck?" she asked between sobs.

Noa shook his head and Pinot returned to crying. "This is getting ridiculous!" Roya sighed, kicking Zed in the ribs to wake him up, which worked quite successfully. Naturally, he wasn't fazed. He shook his head and stood up.

"What happened?" he mumbled.

"Your only weakness," Noa said, dusting off the back of Zed's coat, which was covered in dirt from the road.

Zed hummed, as if it didn't matter. He yawned and rubbed his eyes. "Nothing, huh?" he said. Noa and Roya shook their heads. "Dang. I got nothing either." He paused.

Suddenly, the door swung open and it was Ginga standing in the doorway, smirking like he knew something.

"Ginga!" Noa gasped.

"Oh, boy," Roya muttered.

Zed said nothing, if he acknowledged Ginga was there.

"Guess what I found," he said, trying not to smile anymore than he was. "There is a connection between our missing ones." When no one said anything he continued. "They were all either headed to or near the Old Windmill."

This earned Zed's attention. "Are you serious?" he asked.

"Th-that's right," Pinot said between her gasps, suddenly realizing something. "Mikki was going to deliver some bread to Miss. Tali's house. That's near the Old Windmill."

Zed folded his arms and smirked, thinking for a moment. He walked out of the door, patting Ginga on the shoulder, chuckling a, "Good job." before heading towards Miss. Tali's house. "We have ourselves a lead."


End file.
